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Hunter S. Thompson photos: new book and gallery exhibit

In Los Angeles through January 20, the first ever gallery showing of photos by author Hunter S. Thompson. At left, "Sandy and Agar, Big Sur," 1961. The show, GONZO, coincides with the release of Thompson's final book of that same name. Link to info on gallery show. Includes guns, motorcycles, bruised faces, J. Edgar Hoover, knives, and some arty nudity. [via boing] [link]

Alas, the book is only $225.... anybody want to buy this for me? I'll probably have to wait till it gets cheaper and maybe buy it used... Although this collection of Gonzo Art by Steadman seems a bit more in my price range... only $29....

Why won't God heal amputees?

Nicholas Kristof in a column at the New York Times, as quoted at Darwiniana:

If God is omniscient and omnipotent, you can’t help wondering why she doesn’t pull out a thunderbolt and strike down Richard Dawkins.

Or, at least, crash the Web site of www.whydoesgodhateamputees.com. That’s a snarky site that notes that while people regularly credit God for curing cancer or other ailments, amputees never seem to enjoy divine intervention.

“If God were answering the prayers of amputees to regenerate their lost limbs, we would be seeing amputated legs growing back every day,” the Web site declares, adding: “It would appear, to an unbiased observer, that God is singling out amputees and purposefully ignoring them.”

That site is part of an increasingly assertive, often obnoxious atheist offensive led in part by Professor Dawkins — the Oxford scientist who is author of the new best seller “The God Delusion.” It’s a militant, in-your-face brand of atheism that he and others are proselytizing for... [link]

More links, and responses by Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins at 3QuarksDaily

And please check out the incredibly detailed and well written argument at Why doesn't God heal amputees?

Two per cent hold half of world’s assets

There is no conspiracy. You have the right to become rich. It's your American Dream. You must protect the rich so you can become one. But what if you never become rich? What if all the people who are rich are born rich and inherit their money?

What if they (2%) already have control of half of the world's assets (50%)?

Does that mean they own the world and you just live in it?

Are you their slave or are they yours?

We certainly shouldn't talk about the redistribution of wealth. Starting an argument off making that much sense certainly won't allow it to go anywhere.

We should stay quiet and allow things to continue as they are going. Obviously it's working. Obviously more wealth is being controlled by less and less humans every year. Every year they own more of the world and we own less.

There's nothing you can do. Small groups of people have never been able to change anything. It's only the one great hero who changes things. Like the way that the Civil Rights Movement was won by one man named King. It had nothing to do with the thousands who marched, boycotted, and fought the small battles necessary to win the war. They had nothing to do with the victory. It is only great men who make this world. That's why we can't talk about wealth redistribution, the heroes who have boldly and bravely inherited wealth from their parents have set the agenda for us serfs to talk about. We're to talk about Britney Spears and Michael Jackson and leave the whole "wealth" and "power" thing to those who have wealth and power. Fuck the poor.

Personal wealth is distributed so unevenly across the world that the richest two per cent of adults own more than 50 per cent of the world’s assets while the poorest half hold only 1 per cent of wealth. [link]

Pyramids were built with concrete rather than rocks, scientists claim

sure, it's already on slashdot, but still... any news about the building of the pyramids is important in my book....

"Times Online is reporting that French and American researchers have discovered that the stones on the higher levels of the great pyramids of Egypt were built with concrete. From the article: 'Until recently it was hard for geologists to distinguish between natural limestone and the kind that would have been made by reconstituting liquefied lime.' They found 'traces of a rapid chemical reaction which did not allow natural crystallization. The reaction would be inexplicable if the stones were quarried, but perfectly comprehensible if one accepts that they were cast like concrete.'" [link] [via slashdot]

Welcome to the New Thunt.net

As you can see, not a lot of content here, but we do have the new Drupal (open source content management system) running and that means we have comments, forums, polls, posts and a whole community based site, simply from this one rather painless software upgrade.

I'm going to switch the domain name over now, even though this site is far from done, it is a bit nicer than the index.html file I've been rocking for the past few weeks.

Also I don't really know how to configure apache (the webserver) to do virtual hosts, so we're gonna be rocking the webforward option until I can get someone to figure that out.

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